The nearly two-month-old ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will not be complete until Israeli troops withdraw from the Palestinian territory under a peace plan backed by Washington and the United Nations, mediator Qatar’s prime minister has said.
“Now we are at the critical moment … A ceasefire cannot be completed unless there is a full withdrawal of the Israeli forces, [and] there is stability back in Gaza,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said on Saturday.
Sheikh Mohammed was speaking at the Doha Forum, an annual diplomatic conference in the Gulf state’s capital.
Qatar, alongside the United States and Egypt, helped secure the long-elusive truce in Gaza, which came into effect on October 10 and has mostly halted two years of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Under a second phase of the deal, which has yet to begin, Israel is to withdraw from its positions in the territory, an interim authority is to take over governance, and an international stabilisation force is to be deployed.